Amazon Payments Moves Closer to Serving Location-Based Ads

Amazon Payments made changes to its Privacy Notice and User Agreement and Unauthorized Transaction Policy, informing users through its annual notice emailed to Amazon Payments account holders at the end of October. “Each year we send out a notice to every person that has an active Amazon Payments account with important information about our privacy practices and how you can report errors or unauthorized transactions related to your account,” the email notice began.

One significant change was made to account for mobile apps, allowing Amazon Payments to serve up location-based services, including ads. “When you download or use apps we create or our created by our subsidiaries, we may receive information about your location and your mobile device, including a unique identifier for your device. We may use this information to provide you with location-based services, such as advertising, search results, and other personalized content.” It went on to advise users that they could turn off location services on most mobile devices.

Amazon Payments added the following section to the “Examples of Information Collected”:

Mobile: Most mobile devices provide users with the ability to disable location services. Most likely, these controls are located in the device’s settings menu. For information about specific devices, click here. If you have questions about how to disable your device’s location services, we recommend you contact your mobile service carrier or your device manufacturer.

Throughout the Privacy Notice, we removed references to features and functionality that are no longer supported by our services, including SMS messaging and mobile payment functionality.

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This summary should not affect your interpretation of the Amazon Payments Privacy Notice. Please read the Privacy Notice carefully. Your continued use of Amazon Payments service constitutes acceptance of the updated notice.

Amazon Payments explained that its Unauthorized Transaction Policy spelled out how users could report any billing errors or unauthorized transactions involving the use of their account balance or registered bank accounts and describes its liability and users’ rights for those types of errors or transactions.

Additionally, Amazon Payments explained, it updated the terms and conditions of its User Agreement that apply to the use of the products and services provided by Amazon Payments. The new User Agreement becomes effective on December 4th, 2013.

Apparently some users believed the notice implied Amazon Payments was instituting new fees for personal accounts. A site called Dans Deals checked with Amazon and said he was told that no service fees would be applied from Amazon Payments for sending and receiving funds via credit card at the limit of $1,000 per month.

The publisher and his readers apparently enjoy using the maximum amount allowed without fees in order to increase the spend on their credit cards, thereby earning valuable bonuses from the credit card companies.

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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